6 of 10 dementia sufferers wander, get lost

Eleanor Alexander never deviated from her nighttime routine. She'd eat a light dinner, let her dog Spot out, let him back in, double-lock the screen door. And then, she and her companion would call it a night.

The evening of July 26 started the same way. The 78-year-old told her son she would eat a few bites of the soup he had brought her, then go to bed. She already had on her pink-striped pajamas when he left.

Yet for unknown reasons, instead of going to bed, she stepped outside her rural Coweta County, Ga., home and started walking, wearing nothing more than night clothes and slippers.

Within hours, search teams — deputies and volunteers, people on horseback and guiding four-wheelers, some with search dogs straining at leashes — spread out across the landscape, looking for a tiny target: a woman with wavy white hair, blue eyes, barely weighing 100 pounds.

They found her three days later. Alexander, suffering from dementia, was tangled in a barbed-wire fence in a patch of woods about a mile from home. She was alive, but barely: Her body temperature had dropped to 84 degrees.

Cases like these have been rising, posing challenges for public and private agencies. Dementia sufferers who wander — six of 10 will at some point — can trigger extensive and expensive searches, and not all who wander are found.

Several law enforcement agencies are adopting new technologies to track individuals with dementia, but none is perfect. Experts also say that families can be slow to recognize that a loved one is at risk of wandering.

Before the incident, Alexander's son and daughter-in-law had encouraged her to move in with them. But she balked at the idea and insisted on having her own place.

"I couldn't have imagined she would ever go out solo," said Becky Alexander, who believes her mother-in-law likely has Alzheimer's disease although she's never been formally diagnosed. "She was a homebody. In hindsight, we should have had someone objective weigh in."

In spring 2004, Mattie Moore, a 67-year-old Atlanta woman, wandered away from home. Her body was found eight months later in a wooded area, just 250 yards from her front door.

Moore's death prompted Georgia legislators to create a statewide alert system to help find missing adults with Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other mental disabilities.

Much like the "Amber Alert" for missing children, a "Mattie's Call" disseminates information about a person's disappearance to the media, other law enforcement agencies, as well on Georgia Lottery machines and signs. The missing person is also listed in the National Crime Information Center database.

Since Mattie's Call went into effect in 2006, the number of alerts has increased nearly fivefold. In 2007, there were 31 across the state. Last year there were 150.

Growing concern

The number of wanderers is expected to rise as baby boomers age and face a diagnosis of dementia. One in eight people age 65 and older (and nearly one in two people over age 85) have Alzheimer's disease.

"It's an absolutely huge, huge problem," said Carol Steinberg, president of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America. "It can happen out of the blue. The person could be hungry or thirsty or in their mind be hooked on the idea that they need to go home and they are already home."

People with Alzheimer's are often going somewhere, searching for something and don't necessarily consider themselves lost.

But most of the time, they take off on foot and get lost less than a mile from home. Instead of crying out for help, they become frightened and disoriented and might hide from their rescuers. Search missions can last 20 minutes, or they can drag on for days.

On average, it takes nine hours to find someone with Alzheimer's who has gone missing, according to a 2012 report by the Alzheimer's Foundation of America.

The search and rescue missions are also expensive undertakings, costing taxpayers an estimated $1,500 per hour, the report found.

After 24 hours, a missing person with dementia only has a 50-50 chance of being found alive.

"Looking for a person can be a needle in a haystack," said Ginny Helms, vice president of chapter services and public policy at the Georgia chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. The local chapter assists with 10 missing person cases a month and has a dedicated staff member to work on them.

Every missing case, Helms said, carries a common thread.

"No one expects it to happen," said Helms "And that's the problem."

Tracking systems

A variety of electronic tracking systems are now available to help locate missing people with dementia. They can vastly improve the chances of finding someone, but each has limitations.

A handful of police and sheriff's departments across Georgia have turned to Project Lifesaver, a braceletlike device that emits a silent tracking signal to help locate wandering elderly.

The program requires the jurisdiction to invest about $4,000 for the tracking equipment; each bracelet costs about $360. It's also time intensive, requiring specially trained officers to change the batteries in the bracelets once a month.

The program requires each enrolled person to have 24-hour care, and the bracelet has a limited tracking radius. Alexander, who lived alone, would not have qualified.

Tommy Pope, director for the criminal investigation division for Fayette County, said finding someone with a bracelet usually takes less than 30 minutes.

The Alzheimer's Association offers a GPS-like tracking device called "Comfort Zone," which uses a phone or pagerlike device to keep track of a loved with Alzheimer's and is designed for people in the early stages of the disease. There's a startup cost of $99 for the gadget and a $14.99 monthly fee.

Experts say a critical first step is a more low-tech solution: an ID bracelet. Since wandering can happen at any time of the day or night, it's not uncommon for a missing person with dementia to be without a wallet or identification.

Many people are found by good Samaritans who recognize something amiss and help a person get home safely. An ID bracelet can speed up the person's return home. Medic Alert bracelets include a 1-800 number to help reach family members and emergency responders.

In case it happens

Search the immediate area for no more than 15 minutes before calling 911. Report to police that a person with Alzheimer's disease is missing, and provide police with a recent, close-up photo and updated medical information.

Is the individual right or left-handed? Wandering generally follows the direction of the dominant hand.

Keep a list of places where the person may wander. This could include past jobs, former homes, places of worship or a restaurant.